My Old Blog

Herald Blogs

Sheesh, I feel like the man without a country - in this case without a blog home.

So, if you've been loyal to this blog the past five years, you know that two years ago we moved it from Blogger to Typepad, to a platform hosted by the Miami Herald.

Well, the Miami Herald is updating and changing its blogging setup, and that means cleaning house. So Burnettiquette, along with a few other blogs that haven't been regularly updated for a long time, is on the chopping block. What can I tell you? The past six months have been full, so full I haven't had much time to blog very often (even though I've said repeatedly, "I'll start blogging again, tomorrow!").

No worries, I'm still reporting and writing columns for the Miami Herald. In fact here is my latest column. WaveManCali, I don't want to see any sniping about government interference in our daily lives. You'll see in the middle of the column I actually take your stance on that one!

And, I'll still be blogging. While a new, independent home is being built for the Burnettiquette Blog, starting some time this weekend, or Monday, I'll be temporarily posting at Burnettiquette's old home - http://Burnettiquette.blogspot.com.

Yeah, yeah, I know. On Friday, July 9, 2010, news about anything not related to Lebron James in South Florida probably isn't that exciting.

Nevertheless, I know a few of you care about dollars and cents outside an arena, so here is my weekly column. This week's topic: Funny government math to make the job loss outlook seem better than it really is.

I'm off today, continuing a day-and-a-half anniversary celebration with Mrs. B. In another post - perhpas over the weekend - I'll share how we marked five years hitched.

But here's some food for thought: My column in today's Miami Herald is about city officials in Hollywood, FL, pressuring a beachfront hotel owner to tone down the bright pink color he recently painted the place. It's a historic little boutique place, with a cool tiki bar. Jimmy Hoffa used to vacation there. Neat spot. But it's realllllllly bright now. Some neighbors and city officials have decided they hate the new color. They believe it's gawdy and takes away from the $100 million beachfront rehab effort the city has engaged in over the past few years. Some even say the bright pink building feeds the blight and decay the city's trying to combat.

Here's the catch: The city approved the color, when the hotel owner applied for a permit to paint and change the look back in December. Now the city doesn't like the color. Not only that, but some city officials are so appalled by the look of the place that they sprang into near-instant action and coralled a group of college architecture students to develop an official city color palette.

Here's the conundrum: Two miles away from this pink hotel are buildings that are visibly decaying. There are hookers painted more brightly than the hotel strolling up and down a major street, and there are residents who've been griping about both for decades. Their question and mine? Why is the city so hell-bent on "quieting" the color of the pink place, but not showing the same apparent urgency with a nearby residential area that's been dealing with worse than pink paint for decades?

First things, first: My Friday column is about texting while driving. Do I really need to tell you it's a bd practice? And I swear I'm not just asking 'cause Oprah says it ain't right. Seriously. I'd have said so anyway. For reals!

Anyway, researchers at the University of Utah say texting and talking on cell phones can cause drivers to be as distracted as if they were legally drunk.

More than 500,000 people are injured and 6,000 killed each year in car accidents involving a driver who was texting while behind the wheel.

I confess, I've done it waaaaaay too many times. And I'm fortunate I didn't kill someone or myself. I've stopped, unless I'm at a red light or in a parking lot, or stopped somewhere else. No more texting in moving traffic for me.

In fact, I'm not sure I should even talk on my cell phone in the car. Yeah, I have speakerphone, headsets, etc., but I can't tell you how many times I've gotten so engrossed in a conversation that I've arrived at Point B not even remembering a single detail of the commute from Point A. I'll have to think about cutting back on or cutting out the cell talking while driving too.

So the Florida Legislature had a chance to vote in committee this week on a bill that would ban texting while driving in the Sunshine State. Instead the bill died before a vote, 'cause one lawmaker decided it was silly to go after texting without also going after other behaviors distracting to drivers. In theory she's right. But why not start with texting and work on banning those other things later?

On to my pipes: You can hear me and colleagues discuss this, Gov. Charlie Crist's ditching of the GOP, and other topics from noon - 1 p.m. today - Friday - at wlrn.org, or if you're in South Florida, at 91.3 FM.

My column in today's Miami Herald is about the sad likelihood that a recent victim of hardcore bullying will be menaced again by knuckleheaded kids, and how the bullies are driven by pack mentalities.

Wherever you live, over the past few months you've probably heard or seen the story of Michael Brewer, a 15-year-old South Florida kid who was surrounded by five now-former friends in his neighborhood, ranging in age from 13 - 15 and set afire for reporting them to authorities for trying to steal his dad's bike and for allegedly owing one of 'em money for a video game purchase. Brewer suffered severe burns and was in the hospital for months recovering. He's out and started at a new school a couple days ago. The kids who torched him have been charged with crimes. But I spoke with experts who say a new pack of bullies will probably single him out 'cause they think he's vulnerable now. Hope the experts are wrong, but these are people whose expertise is built on preventing new Columbines from happening.

Anywho, you can read the whole column here. Check it out, come back here, tell me what you think.

Moving right along, here's an interesting story: A cop in Philadelphia bought a hair color kit, 'cause she thought crimson - the color labeled on the box - would be neato. She dyed her locks, showed up to work the next day, and was quickly confronted by a supervisor who told her to lose the purple hair 'cause it was a violation of the Philly Police Department's rule against officer's having "unnatural" hair color. The cop said her hair wasn't purple, but rather red. They bickered for a bit over the fine points of hair dye and the difference between crimson, red, and purple. In the end, the supervisor sent the officer home a couple of times and even had her photographed mugshot style for evidence. So she sued, arguing it was a hair color she'd worn for seven years prior as a cop and had never gotten a complaint from the bosses.

My first reaction is that this was a silly fight. I really don't care what color a cop's hair is. I honestly don't think I'd view that officer as more or less credible or authoritative based on his/her hair color. If it was lime green or something, I might find it distracting and annoying, but I'd still probably listen if a lime green-haired cop weilding a nightstick or mace...or gun, was headed in my direction.

My second reaction though is this wasn't a rule the supervisor pulled out of his wig. This was a written rule in the PDP and had been in place long before Ofcr. Purple decided to get creative. So what's her beef? It was a rule. The supervisor thought her crimson was a little too out there. At worst it was a difference of opinion over purple and crimson. No?

Anyway, Philly PD has a hair problem. A year or so ago, another cop showed up with braided/cornrowed hair, and he was put on desk duty till he agreed to cut it. Think you know what his beef was about? If you guess race, you guess wrong. Ofcr. Cornrow was a white cop!

I have lots to say 'bout lots of stuff, but first I need you to indulge me a bit: Talk to me about the topic of today's column.

To read the whole thing follow that link. Please do read the whole thing! But if you don't have time, here's a synopsis: Over the past 12 months there have been at least eight murders or major assaults at South Florida night spots. With one exception, all of these incidents were sparked by verbal spats - someone calling someone else a name, someone looking at someone else the wrong way and then making a snarky comment, someone flirting with someone else's signficant other, etc.

There is an element out there - usually of the elected variety - that take these incidents to be signs that nightclubs are inherently unsafe, especially if they play "angry" music.

I don't see it that way. This isn't a club issue. It's a good sense issue. Sure, nightclubs need to provide adequate security, but you can't fault clubs for ignorant people who patronize the places and then act out.

Would you fault a restaurant owner if a series of jackasses choose to frequent his place and end their evenings by turning over tables and throwing dishes on the floor?

And when you come across a neighborhood that has a crime problem, you don't blame the officials who represent that 'hood or the cops who patrol it - not if you have good sense, anyway. You blame the people committing the crime.

Anyway, follow that link if you have a moment, then come back here and weigh in.

Happy Friday, folks. My Friday column this week is about exactly what the title says.

Here's the first few of grafs:

As cliches go, ``what you don't know can hurt you'' would be an ideal motto for some members of the Florida Legislature this week.

Because while it is often great fun to take jabs at the august body in Tallahassee that found it necessary to pass laws prohibiting the sale of one's children and engaging in sex with porcupines, this week lawmakers hit a home run.

State Sen. Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican, has sponsored a bill -- the Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Civics Education Act -- mandating that middle-school students pass a civics test in order to advance.

Current state law prescribes social and civics studies for middle schoolers but doesn't require the test, which, if Detert has her way, will factor into overall grades by the 2013-14 school year and comprise 30 percent of final grades...

Your thoughts on such a requirement? I like it. In terms of the future of the management of this country, few things are scarier than kids who don't know and/or don't care who's running their government - local, state, federal - and what their elected officials are up to.

Look at what we have now among voting-aged adults: a mishmash of lethargic people who don't care, too-trusting people demonstrating blind loyalty along party lines, and hyper-enthusiastic people who are angry but not knowledgeable enough about the issues to know exactly what/who to be angry with.

If a mandatory civics test helps give 8th-graders a head start to learning all this stuff, I'm all for it.

BY JAMES H. BURNETT III

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- On a recent Friday morning, Marie Kettie Geolnarol-Archer, between appointments in the Champ de Mars neighborhood, stopped people in the street and on the sidewalk, gently squeezing shoulders and patting backs until they looked her in the eye.

``You are not crazy,'' she told them. ``Everything will be OK.''

Geolnarol-Archer is a psychologist, and while her sidewalk ``treatments'' may have been casual and unorthodox, the most unusual thing about them was the responses....